So I get report from one of my favorite night nurses (seriously, I luv her) It goes on and on about the patient, one part sticks out in my mind though, ” The patient came in wearing a holter monitor that she is not wearing now because she is being monitored on our monitors and she also has a chest tube to 20cm of H2O suction, status post lymph node removal in the operating room yesterday.” I go to the room and find “LIFE VEST” batteries plugged into the wall, and I am thinking what is this?
The real story: Patient came to the hospital wearing a life vest due to an increased risk for sudden cardiac arrest, and is status post thoracotomy for partial lung removal with a chest tube to fix the ensuing pneumothorax.
Two very different scenarios and care.
Ummm That’s scary? Why such a discrepency(?)?
I’m not in the medical field so I wouldn’t know although have had this type of mix up happen with my Mom as one emergency room trip- the Doc who had her case and was not her PCP wrote on her records what the radiologist thought it was and that somehow became her diagnoses(which was way off from what was really happening) and it was a nightmare to get people to listen and change what was on her “records”. It just kept getting passed along and taken for the real illnes….
The difference was it being a blocked hepatic vein and an radiologist thinking it was end-stage liver cancer…
Wow in your Moms experience that is a discrepency that must of been frustrating.